


Blessed Are Those Who Mourn

by AndreaDTX



Category: X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, Erik Has Feelings, Erik-centric, Eventual Happy Ending, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Helpful Charles Xavier, Kid Pietro Maximoff, Light Angst, M/M, Mutants Aren't Known, Protective Erik Lehnsherr, Slow Build, grief recovery, like seriously
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2020-09-16
Packaged: 2020-10-25 20:57:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 16,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20730644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndreaDTX/pseuds/AndreaDTX
Summary: Erik Lehnsherr was orphaned at the age of 13. He did okay in foster homes until at 15, he began to exhibit weird and inexplicable abilities. Fearing institutionalization or experimentation, he ran, resorting to petty crime and street living. Now at 31, he’s cleaned up his act and finally gotten his life halfway together. Or so he thought until he finds a silent, moody eleven-year-old waiting for him on his doorstep.Charles Xavier is one of the top psychologists in the nation. He's never told anyone that a big part of his success is that he can literally hear what his patients are thinking, making it much easier to sort through their troubles. One day, he finds himself inextricably drawn to the distress of a man and his new found son, and he feels compelled to help. It gets more complicated when the boy show signs of having powers of his own.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> It has always bothered me that the FOX X-men universe never resolved the Pietro and Erik's familial connection. And since Pietro is already dead in the MCU, it probably won't happen there either. Erik has lost two separate families, plus several friends he considered family. He clearly does better when in a paternal/ mentoring role and constantly talks about mutant brothers and sisters showing his desire for connection. FOX may be cruel, but I'm not (not really...) He's my iron woobie and I want him to have nice things, even if he has to work for it.
> 
> A/N: Adjusted Pietro's age just a bit. When I started writing his dialogue, he sounded a bit closer to middle school than grade school.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See end of chapter notes for Trigger Warnings

Erik is used to coming home to flyers tucked into his front door. Promotions for dog walkers, ads for local eateries, coupon circulars for the nearby grocer, and things of the like. Sometimes there will be a package from Amazon or a new pair of running shoes he ordered. Every blue moon he’ll come home to find a stray cat or dog curled up outside his door and he’ll have to gently shoo them away. But this is definitely a first.

The small boy is sitting with his back propped against the door, knees pulled up to his chest, head resting on top. His shoulders raise and fall in the deep rhythmic breathing pattern of sleep. Erik nudges him with his foot.

The kid startles, his eyes flying open. Sleepiness quickly flees his features and he scrambles to his feet with an uncanny quickness, all the while giving Erik a wary stink eye as though Erik was invading his personal space instead of the other way around. Standing, he looks even younger than Erik had initially guess, no more than ten or eleven maybe.

“Is there a reason you’re sleeping on my doormat, kid?” he asks, not bothering to mask his faint annoyance. The entire train ride home he’d been dreaming about a cold beer and slouching on the couch to finally find out who murdered the pervert priest in the series he’s been bingeing. The sooner he can get rid of his pre-teen trespasser the sooner he can get on with it. 

The boy stands silently, blocking his path, looking inexplicably defiant and uncertain all at once.

Erik sighs. The kid probably just got turned around, maybe got off his bus at the wrong stop.

“Look, are you lost?" Erik asks, softening his voice. "Do you need me to call somebody?”

Without saying a word, the kid shoves his hand into the back pocket of his worn jeans. He pulls out a bundle of light pink stationary and holds it out.

Erik considers it for a moment before finally taking the paper. Maybe the kid's mute or has some other type of communication problem. The sheet has clearly been folded and unfolded many times, the creases soft with wear. Opening it, he scans over the contents hoping for something simple along the lines of ‘If lost, please return to Jane.’

Instead, he gets a diary entry written in distinctively feminine curly cue script that makes him nearly stumble a step back. The words seem to jump up from the page.

_First, know that I never meant to lie to you or to hurt you…_

_I never imagined I would be blessed with such a permanent reminder of our time together. I would’ve told you, I swear, but you were so… angry. I could see it eating you up inside… _

_I didn’t want you to feel trapped, like you had to stay when I know you wanted nothing more than to leave. I never wanted you to resent us…_

_But still, you should know. Because if anything ever happens to me, it’ll be up to you to raise our son…_

Queasy adrenaline sloughs through his body, inky and viscous. His heart races as his eyes jump down the page looking for the signature.

Magda Eisenhardt.

The memory of a thin slip of a girl with dark eyes and dimpled cheeks, dances through his head. They’d fallen in love, or at least in lust, for a few passionate months before floating apart and losing contact years ago.

A little over a decade ago, in fact…

“Magda's your mother?” he finally asks, looking up from the page, peering at the boy, studying his features. But he already knows the answer. Now that he knows to look, he can see her. The boy has her mouth, the way the corners pinch when she’s unhappy, her oval face, and large eyes.

But more noticeably, he has Erik’s father’s steel grey hair. It’s a startling feature on such a young person, but one common to the Lehnsherr side of the family. After his father’s untimely death, Erik had briefly lamented inheriting his mother’s ginger blonde hair.

“She _was_,” the boy says with a sense of finality no one his age should be familiar with.

A heavy dreadful knowing weighs in his stomach. Erik pauses for a heartbeat or two, mentally tosses out a thought of bereavement, wishing her spirit well, allows himself a brief moment to feel sad for a loss he hadn’t even know he’d experienced. He swallows, clears his throat.

“What happened?”

The boy shrugs.

“It got to be too much, I guess,” he says. Then he pantomimes putting a gun to his head and mimics an explosion, a tacky and grotesque way to describe the demise of his own mother.

Erik frowns, but doesn’t chastise him. What right does he have to tell the kid what he can or can’t say?

“Does anyone know you’re here?” he asks instead.

“Nope,” the kid says with a shake of his head. It's a foolish thing to admit. The kid's body language screams 'I'm tough' but the naivety of his admission when he doesn't truly know Erik from Adam tells Erik all he really needs to know. The streets would eat this kid alive.

He scrubs a hand over his face, looks at the boy, then left and right, surveying the rows of townhouses on his street as though one of his neighbors might pop their head out and advise him what to do.

He reaches around the kid to unlock his front door and pushes it open.

“Do you want to come in?”

“Whatever,” the boy mumbles as he ducks under Erik’s arm and steps into the foyer.

Erik follows, all thoughts of beer and bingeing obliterated.

Finding out that he was now the father of a half-grown kid was more drama than anything Netflix had to offer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The boy refers to his mother's suicide. It's not at all graphic, but is described in very crass terms and gestures.


	2. Chapter 2

Inside, Erik hangs his jacket and keys on their designated hooks just inside the doorway. He toes off his shoes and pushes them onto the bottom shelf of the storage bench he keeps in the entry way. He motions for the boy to do the same, but the kid ignores him and continues forward, onto the pristine carpet in his dust-coated sneakers. Erik feels the hot flare of temper that's gotten him so much trouble over the years. He clenches his teeth instead of calling the boy out on his rudeness.

“You hungry?” he asks instead as he trails his unexpected guest, his… son… into the living room.

“I could eat,” the boy says with a feigned casualness as he scopes the open space much like Erik himself has done dozens of times. The day his case worker deposited him at kiddie prison they optimistically called a group housing facility. On the bright, sunny day he'd arrived at the home of the one couple that had tried to foster him before it all went to shit. At the countless hostels he’d crashed in when he could scrape enough money together to get out of the rain or cold. It was always important to take in as much information as quickly as possible to give yourself an idea of who and what you’re dealing with.

He tries to see his home through a child’s eyes. He doesn’t have much but it’s comfortable, a space he's carved out that caters to his own wants and interests rather than cookie cutter handouts approved for wards of the state. Erik has precious few mementos of his childhood. A couple of faded photographs, a birthday card he'd doggedly schlepped from one place to the other, a few other odds and ends. They’re mixed in amongst an admittedly eclectic collection of kitschy items he’s picked up on a whim over the years. Shot glasses from his stint as a bartender, bottle caps from his time in the factory, postcards he’d filched from various newsstands as he hitchhiked up and down the eastern seaboard, a few framed pictures of Erik with people he'd had a fleeting connection with in his wilder days. It all tells snippets of his life story. But the kid’s eyes only light up once he sees the 60” television and accompanying PlayStation console, a splurge Erik made with his second real paycheck. The first had gone towards the security deposit for this place, transitioning him from a recipient of the Blessings of Avraham Community Services to his own two feet. Remembering his own excitement over the electronics, Erik can't really blame the kid.

Well, he will if they turn up missing.

“Grab a seat,” Erik offers as he continues into the kitchen. Pulling open the fridge, he grabs cold cuts, cheese, romaine lettuce, and a tomato before pausing.

He sticks his head around the corner. “You allergic to anything?”

The boy snatches his hand back guiltily from a row of knick-knacks on the entertainment system.

“Not that I know of,” he replies, shoving his hands into his pocket. Erik’s eyes narrow at the shelf, but nothing appears to be missing. He reaches out softly with his mind, but all he feels in the boy’s pockets is the light weight of a few loose coins and a small pocket knife he’ll have to keep an eye out for.

“Mustard? Mayo?”

“Mustard,” the boy answer, drifting closer to the kitchen at the suggestion of food.

It takes a few minutes, but Erik slaps together four sandwiches. He doesn’t know how much the boy can eat, but he can easily eat two on his own. Handing the boy one plate, he directs him by a gesturing of his chin to the dining room table. A few more back and forths and they have their sandwiches plus a small plate of sliced tomatoes, pickles, onions, and lettuce for the boy to add on as he pleased as well as a large bag of chips and two cans of soda.

The boy slides into a chair at Erik’s prodding, tucking one leg under his body to give him more height in the seat.

He looks up, unsure, asking wordless permission to begin.

“Have at it,” Erik reassures him. “That’s what it’s here for.”

After cramming a handful of chips into his sandwich, the boy lights into the food in a slightly more civilized manner than a starving junkyard dog. But only just slightly.

Erik huffs a laugh, remembering the struggle of having the metabolism of a growing boy. “Long time since breakfast, huh?”

The boy blushes a little and mumbles in the affirmative around a mouth full of food.

They eat in silence, Erik watching the boy as much as he can without making him uncomfortable. Even with the kid sitting there, real and tangible, it's difficult to wrap his head around the idea that he has a son. A connection. Family. Someone who sought him out. Erik pushes a second sandwich forward when the boy looks at it longingly. The boy carefully tears the sandwich in half. Erik feels a slight gust of wind that makes him look backwards, curiously trying to track its source. When he looks back, one of the sandwich halves has already disappeared and the boy is eating the other half with big, rapid bites.

“There’s plenty more where that came from if you get hungry again,” Erik assures him sympathetically. Hunger pangs are a familiar foe and he wouldn’t wish their acquaintance on anyone.

When the kid finally sits back in his chair, still eyeing the remaining slices of tomatoes and pickles, but seeming disinclined to eat any more, Erik clears his throat.

“Okay. So, we need to talk,” he tells the boy.

The kid’s mouth pinches in irritation, a familiar tick from the past Erik's more accustomed to seeing on feminine features.

“About what?”

“About you. You just popped up at my door.”

“Yeah,” the boy says, more of a dismissal than a confirmation.

Erik looks at him. “It's kind of sudden. Where'd you come from?”

The boy rolls his eyes with a bitter laugh and makes a crude gesture with the pointer finger and thumb of one hand and two fingers of the other. “You should know better than anyone.”

Erik scoffs, waving off the obscene gesture undeterred. “Is there someone I need to call? There has to be somebody looking for you.”

“Nope. I kinda do my own thing.”

Erik gives him a harder stare. “Sorry. Ten-year-old kids don’t get to 'do their own thing.' Someone has to know you're missing by now and they're probably freaking out.”

The kid gives him a wry look. “I'm eleven. And millions of kids go missing every year, vanished into thin air, and no one even bothers looking for them.”

Fair enough. Erik's seen enough kids camping out on bus benches and under the bridges, busking on street corners and in the train stations to know it's true. Granted those kids are older, usually in their teens. But that's not important. They could argue statistics all day. It would get them nowhere.

“Ok. Let’s start with a question I know has an answer. What’s your name?”

The boy hesitates for a moment before responding, seemingly trying to decide something.

“Peter.”

“Peter?” Erik echoes, testing the name curiously.

He nods. “Peter Lehnsherr.”

Taken aback, he swallows hard against the sudden tightness in his throat. “She gave you my name?”

“You gave her a baby and took off,” Peter retorts sharply. "Seems like a reasonable trade off on her part."

Erik sighs. “Look, you’ve seen the letter. You know I didn’t _know_.”

Peter pinches his mouth for a moment before the sullen look slides to uncertainty, a look that betrays the true age beneath the attitude. “Well, now you do. So, what are you going to do?”

Erik doesn’t even really have to think about it. His answer is born from years of frustration and desperate wishing he had someone to step in and help him.

“We’re going to notify the state that I’ll be taking custody of you.”


	3. Chapter 3

“His name is Peter Lehnsherr,” Erik repeats into the phone for the third time. “L-e-h-n—no. H then N… S-h-e-…. No. L-e-h-n-**_s_**_-_h-e-r-r. Two e’s, two h’s, two r’s. Yes.”

He listens for a moment. “Yes… No. _His _name is Peter. _My _name is Erik. Same last name… Yes, he’s my son.”

Listening again, he flops down onto the couch. “Erik. With a ‘k’.”

He looks over to Peter who has finally removed his filthy shoes before curling up in the corner of the couch. He’s quietly watching a show that appears to be about a teenage boy who travels the world as full-time lead singer of a rock band and part-time spy, serenading teenaged girls and thwarting dastardly adults all over the globe. With a now full belly, he’s having trouble keeping his eyes open, his head drifting town towards his chest before snapping back up again only to repeat the pattern minutes later. Who knows how long he’s been awake, trekking to get here.

After the fourth or so drift, Erik cradles the phone between his ear and his shoulder, takes the throw blanket folded on the arm of the sofa, and lays it over the boy. Peter jerks awake, eyes wide, until he sees it’s Erik. He relaxes marginally, but sits up straighter and shoves the blanket down but not all the way off.

“Yes, he’s here now... With me,” Erik says then gives the harried lady on the other end of the phone his address and phone number.

“Because his mother recently passed… No, I don’t have the paperwork. I just found out today.”

He listens some more.

“She had full physical custody… No, as far as I know she didn’t have any family. We hadn’t been in contact… Einhardt. E-i…. yes, e-i… _e-i_…. like Old McDonald.”

His shoulders slump heavily.

“No, E-i-n, not e-i-e-i… _oh my god_,” he mutters to himself in exasperation. “No, not you! Sorry.”

Forty-five minutes later, he’s promised to make an appointment for Peter to see a DCS-approved pediatrician and has a visit with a caseworker scheduled for five days from now.

“Is it official?” Peter asks, his voice drowsy.

“Not yet,” Erik answers, “but the wheels are turning. We’re gonna have to jump some hoops to prove I didn’t kidnap you or something.”

Peter squints. “But _I _came to _you_.”

Erik gives him a droll look.

“Millions of kids have been lured out of their homes and into the arms dangerous predators,” he says, echoing their earlier conversation. “They vanish into thin air, never to be seen again.”

Peter rolls his eyes and goes back to his show. Erik goes back to making calls. As expected, his health insurance company is very suspicious of his sudden acquisition of a non-newborn, unadopted child and pediatricians have schedules busier than the president.

By the time he’s done calling around, the sun has started to set and he has the beginnings of a headache. He lets his head fall back against the couch cushions and props his legs on the chaise part of the l-shaped couch.

He has a million more questions, things he wants know, things he _needs_to know if they’re going to live together.

But it’ll wait, at least until morning.

He sits there with Peter for two more animated shows before calling it a night, suddenly feeling every minute that he’s been awake.

“Time for bed,” he announces.

“I’m not tired,” Peter whines plaintively even as he stretches and rubs his eyes.

Erik uses the remote to turn the TV off.

“That’s fine. But tomorrow’s gonna be a long day. It’ll be better if you’re rested.”

Peter grumbles but doesn’t put up more than nominal resistance. He climbs off the couch and follows Erik up the stairs to the guest room. Erik pushes the door open and flips the light on.

“So, I’m sleeping on the couch,” Peter asks as they both take in the workout room/ home office/ storage area. It’s not wildly junky, but it’s not guest-ready either. He hadn’t thought about it, but if he’s honest the room serves as four-walled equivalent of the junk drawer, a catch-all for the entire house. The path to the pullout bed is blocked by equipment and there are stacks of stuff piled on the couch itself.

Erik clicks his tongue. “Yeah, I guess so. I’ll get this sorted tomorrow.”

They get Peter set up with pillows and blankets on the downstairs couch.

“Do you need, like, a nightlight or something?” Erik asks, unsure if kids this age are still afraid of the dark.

Peter scrunches his face.

“I’m not a baby,” he all but snarls.

Erik shrugs. “Ok. Good night then.”

He heads towards his room, turning out lights as he goes, plunging the space in darkness. He’s halfway up the stairs when he hears a soft voice.

“It’d probably be okay if you left the bathroom light on though. Just in case.”

With a non-judgmental nod, he backtracks and flips on the light in the guest half-bath, pulling the door to so only a sliver of light gets through, lightly illuminating the living room.

* * *

Finally alone in his own room, Erik takes a quick shower, throws on a pair of pajama pants, and slides into bed. Lying down feels so good he nearly moans. He’s exhausted, muscle-deep, in a way that he shouldn’t be given his desk job. Probably from holding himself so tensely since he first laid eyes on Peter. It’s only been a little over twelve hours since he left for work this morning, a single man with no kids. But that 8 am reality now feels light years away. Rolling over onto his stomach, he tucks his arm under his pillow as he tries to get comfortable, his mind drifting inevitably to the boy in his living room.

A son... Holy hell. His mind keeps screaming ‘how did this happen?’ but as Peter bluntly reminded him, he knows exactly how this happened. A part of him is grateful to Magda for not throwing this at him back then. It probably would’ve made him spiral even harder on his destructive path. But another part is a little angry. All these years, he’s felt alone, unmoored, isolated. But there’d been a connection out there, unknown and far away. Magda had often said she felt the same way, having grown up in foster care from a very young age. Had her decision to stay quiet about it really been about letting him be free and happy or had she simply wanted to hoard their son’s affection for herself?

As soon as the thought crosses his mind, he feels guilty for thinking it. Regardless of her motivations, she’d kept the baby and raised him, taking care of him all on her own.

He wondered what their lives had been like. He remembers living with his mother in the wake of his father’s murder. Their family had been happy before, close to each other and content with their lot in life. But the years that followed? He could only describe them as painful. His mother, heartbroken over the senseless loss of her husband, fearful for the safety of her son. She’d fretted her way into an early grave, her heart giving out in a sudden cardiac arrest at thirty-three just shy of the second anniversary of his father’s death at the same age. As distant as she’d been in her grief, he’d missed her terribly, missed the closeness and laughter they’d once shared. The memory had sustained him through many lonely nights in crowded rooms.

Had Peter and Magda gotten along? What had Magda told the boy about him? He couldn’t help but wonder what had driven her to take her own life and leave her young son behind. She’d always been so attuned to the needs of others. When she and Erik had been together, Magda had always insisted she could tell exactly what other people were feeling. Unfortunately, her mood would often swing wildly to match, requiring effort for her to pull back to her own sweet, even demeanor. She’d been eerily good at nailing Erik’s mood, although anyone probably could have guessed with ease, given how he often wore his anger on his sleeve. But she never failed to pull him out of a funk. Given the secret Erik has always kept about what he can do with metal objects just by thinking, he never questioned her insistence that her empathy was her gift to use and her burden bear.

Had it finally overwhelmed her? Had she come into contact with someone who was so deeply depressed that she hadn’t been able to counter their emotions, but instead been sucked into their fatal pain?

He’ll never know and he falls asleep wishing he’d at least been there to try to help.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've fiddled with this chapter until I'm sick of looking at it. But overall, I like the way it turned out even if it took longer than I'd like. Let me know what you think!

Erik stares down at the floor, head bowed in reverence. He really wants to get up, maybe go outside for a while. His backside is all but numb and the wool of his suit rubs against his skin, scratchy and uncomfortable. But he knows better. He’s been taught to observe the old ways. Leaving would be disrespectful. When you lose someone, Shiva lasts for seven days. So, he sits. But he can’t help looking around.

And that’s when he notices.

Every time he looks away and then back, the photo of the person being mourned changes. His father in his best three-piece suit. His grandmother in her familiar flowered dress. His mother, young and happy, smiling in a way she hasn’t in years. A young woman, familiar and unfamiliar all at once. It cycles over and over again, showing faces he’ll never see again on this side of _shamayim_.

He twists in his seat, craning his neck, and frowns. The mirrors are uncovered, there are no candles, his head is uncovered, and he’s alone. It’s not respectful. They can’t... He struggles out of his seat, against heavy limbs that don’t seem to work, and walks through the silent, empty room that should be full of mourners sharing memories. A movement flickers in his peripheral vision and he pivots left, both hoping to and fearing seeing someone else. But it’s just his reflection in the mirror. But even that’s wrong. It’s not him. Or maybe it is but… He squints, steps closer. It looks like it _could _be him. A more grown up version maybe. That’s… not right either… He’s probably wistfully thought about what he’d do when he was finally a grown up a million times. But he’s not there yet. He’s still a kid.

_Not anymore, _the reflection says, looking both sad and angry. Then the figure reaches through the frame as though to touch him. He jerks back in fear only to trip and fall, hard onto the seat of his pants. He scuttles away barely able to tear his eyes away from the eerie stranger who seems to have his face.

Something crashes in another room. He spins towards the sound. The whole world spins dizzily before all of reality jerks and...

Erik sits up gasping, more than a little disoriented, his heart racing in his chest. He’s in a bed. His bed. In the brownstone he’s lived in for well over a year.

Forcing his breathing to calm, he sits silently, trying to focus. Something had woken him…

In the distance, glass tinkles and crunches and a high, whining sound peals through the silence.

What was that… was someone breaking into his apar-

_Peter! _his brain all but yelps at him, lurching fully back to the present.

He scrambles out of bed, instinct stretching his hand to summon the metal pipe he keeps in the corner. It lands in his palm with a solid _thwap! _Not the most powerful or conventional thing to have, but after that hateful piece of trash gunned down his father in the street like a dog, Erik couldn’t stomach the idea of having a gun around. But he wasn’t naively optimistic enough to live without any form of protection on hand either. Maybe it was a little cocky, but with his secret ability, he figured he’d be okay. Most weapons were made of metal. He might not be able to stop a bullet, but he could pull a gun out of the hands of an unsuspecting criminal or at least redirect its path.

As far as he knew, Peter had no such ability.

Erik creeps out of his bedroom and down the stairs, moving slowly, peering in the dark for clues of what happened. The couch is covered loosely with rumpled sheets and blankets but there’s no sign of the boy who’d been sleeping there. Erik wants to kick himself. He never should’ve let the boy sleep down here alone, he thinks belatedly. He could’ve taken the couch himself and let the boy stay in his room for the night, putting himself between Peter and all the points of entry. It’s what his mother would’ve done, without a second thought.

Passing the living room, Erik pauses at the entry way, the only real cover in the otherwise open floor, its thin wall separating the small foyer area from the kitchen. He strains, listening for even the smallest hint of who might be in the kitchen, silently promising suffering if anyone has lain a finger on the boy. Gathering his courage, he leans around the wall, every muscle in his body prepared to pounce.

But the only one there is the boy.

“Peter?” Erik asks in confusion, flipping the track light switch, bathing the area in low, warm light.

Peter’s head snaps up from where he’s slumped on the floor and he almost seems to flicker before Erik’s very eyes.

Erik looks around taking in every detail, eyes scanning over the shard of a broken drinking glass that surround the boy.

“I’m… I’m sorry,” Peter whispers, his eyes welling up quickly.

“There’s nothing to be sorry for,” Erik assures him. He steps forward mentally evaluating the best way to extricate the child. The thin slivers of bright red blood against the pale skin of the boy’s hands and feet bear witness to the dilemma he’d found himself in.

“Hold still,” Erik tells him softly.

Stepping carefully, aware of his own bare feet, Erik reaches down carefully grips the boy under his arms. With a grunt he straightens and lifts. The kid might be slight for his age but he’s not a totable toddler either. Pivoting, Erik deposits the boy safely on the carpet just past where the kitchen’s linoleum ends.

Other than slight hissing, Peter doesn’t protest the handling, only plopping down on his back side, further proof of how out of it he really is.

Erik leaves the boy alone for just a moment as he backtracks to the guest bathroom. Opening the medicine cabinet, he plucks the necessary first aid supplies.

He returns and puts the supplies on the dining room table. With an arm under the boy’s back and legs, he scoops him up from where he’s been sitting in the pathway shared by the kitchen and dining area. He gently places the boy in a chair.

“Let’s get you cleaned up, yeah?”

With as a delicate touch, he uses tweezers to work tiny slivers of glass from the boy’s left foot. He winces in sympathy and murmurs apologies each time the boy grunts in pain when Erik has to dig a little deeper than is comfortable. Once he’s sure both hands and feet are fully free of glass debris, he wipes them down with alcohol, blowing to cool the burn the same way his mother and grandmother always did. He does stop short of kissing the newly bandaged spot. By the time he was the boy’s age, he’d thought the gesture silly and embarrassing even as he’d craved the comfort.

“You were very brave,” he says as he closes up the remaining supplies.

The boy sniffles. “No. I wasn’t. I had a nightmare and I got scared. I was shaking. That’s why I dropped the glass. It was stupid.”

“No. It was _an accident. _And accidents happen.”

The boy doesn’t respond.

Not wanting to pressure him, Erik takes the supplies back to the bathroom. Then picks his way across the kitchen floor to the pantry. He sweeps the glass remains up carefully and runs a wet mop cloth across the floor to make sure he got everything.

“Tell you what, how about you take my room and I’ll sleep down here?”

Peter looks at him and the light returns to his eyes just as his mouth thins mulishly. “I’m fine down here.”

“It’s no big deal, seriously,” Erik says. “I had a nightmare, too. I probably would’ve been down here soon for water anyway. I’ll probably watch some TV before dropping back off.”

Peter lifts a silvery brow. “So, you’re saying whoever stays down here instead of going to your room can watch TV until they feel like going back to sleep?”

Erik had walked into that without even seeing it coming.

“One episode,” he says begrudgingly.

“I don’t know,” Peter says, shifting into bargaining mode. “I’m feeling pretty shook up. Maybe I need to two.”

“If you’re that shook up, maybe you need to be upstairs with me so I can keep an eye on you,” Erik says, quickly warming to the game.

Peter frowns. “One episode of whatever I want?”

Erik considers. “Animated only, nothing longer than an hour, I set the sleep timer before I leave, all future deals are null and void if you tamper with it.”

“Deal!” Peter says quickly, like the cat who got the canary.

Erik helps the boy settle back onto the couch and lets him pick a show. It’s an animated movie that’s scheduled to last an hour and a half, so Erik dutifully shows him that he’s DVR-ing the whole thing so it can be finished at a more respectable hour. Then he sets the timer and leaves after making Peter promise to come get him if he needs anything else.

He goes to bed pleased, thinking maybe things aren’t so bad.

The feeling last until morning when he notices the odd man loitering outside of his house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've written most of chapter 5 already, but it's long hand and on paper so it has to be transcribed and edited. If all goes my way, it'll be up no later than the end of next week.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys for the kudos and the comments. It was really encouraging that people are actually reading this work even when I was stuck.

Nothing about the man stands out as particularly threatening other than his unexplained presence. That in and of itself is unsettling. The road in front of the house is not heavily trafficked and new faces tend to stand out. Peering through the slats of the blinds, careful not to give himself away by accidentally bumping them, Erik studies the stranger, noting every detail with an ease borne from years of automatically tagging everyone he met as either a potential threat or a possible mark.

Late twenties, maybe a few years shy of thirty. Dark hair worn in a tousled style probably meant to look effortless while actually communicating the opposite. Clean shaven with cheeks rounded ever so slightly, still echoing boyish youth. Skin that suggests very little time spent outdoors. Blue eyes, eerily striking, bright enough to make out even at a distance.

Erik’s pretty sure the man isn’t casing the house. Olive-green pea coat, navy-blue neck scarf, dark grey corduroys, they’re all of a quality Erik recognizes from his own desperate days of busking and hustling in the nicer parts of town. If they’re anything to go by, Blue Eyes could probably easily afford any and everything in Erik’s tiny home, maybe even two or three times over.

It’d be easy to write him off as waiting for a taxi or a friend, except he seems to be studying the house indecisively. Erik waits to see what the man will do next.

He just stands there. Watching with an uncertain gaze.

Tired of the whole thing and annoyed at being made to feel unsafe in his own home, Erik makes up his mind to go and ask the guy what he wants. But as quickly as the thought takes hold, the man jolts, as if he suddenly realized or remembered something, and moves on.

A tension Erik hadn’t even realized he’d been holding seeps out as the man disappears from sight. Erik sighs. Maybe his street days, and the fear and wariness that had filled them, weren’t as far behind him as he likes to think.

He doesn’t have much time to ruminate on it before a stray gust of air blows across his back. Looking for the source of the inexplicable draft, he turns around only to startle painfully at the sight of Pietro two steps behind him.

“Jeez, kid,” he says, making himself relax and drop the knives he telekinetically grabbed in reflex.

Peter looks unphased at the sight of his father clutching a steak knife in each hand or the spoon stuck to his leg like static cling with no explanation of how they’d gotten there. In fact, he seems content to ignore it as ‘weird guy being weird.’

“I’m hungry,” the boy says.

Erik looks him over. He’s wearing some of Erik’s cast-offs, a t-shirt that goes mid-way down his forearms and slips off one shoulder even in the face of Peter’s continual attempts to pull it back up, and sweatpants that’ve been rolled up, but pool around his ankles with enough excess material to look like MC Hammer pants.

“Alright,” Erik says. “I’ll make some turkey bacon and eggs. Then we need to see about getting you some clothes.”

“’Kay,” Peter agrees readily.

Once they’ve both eaten their fill, which was a surprising amount for a boy Peter’s size, Peter changes back into his old clothes and they head off. On the train, Peter is fidgety but mostly stays in place next to Erik. He does twist and turn to peer out of the windows at the scenery whizzing by and once Erik has to tap him to stop him from staring rudely at a person with neon-striped hair and an alarming number of facial piercings and tattoos.

Soon enough, they reach their stop. From there, they board a bus which takes them to the Super Target. Out of an abundance of caution, Erik tries to take Peter’s hand as they walk across the very busy parking lot. Peter immediately snatches his hand out of reach.

“I’m not a baby,” he snaps.

“No,” Erik concedes. “But you are a short person not easily seen by cars and you already seem to have a tendency to dart first and ask questions later. At my height, I’m very visible so sticking by me will keep you from playing real life Frogger.”

“Frogger?” Peter asks.

“Splat,” is all Erik says by way of explanation.

Peter reluctantly slopes his trajectory in to walk closer to Erik.

Inside the store, Erik pulls a cart from the carousel.

“Alright, just so we’re clear. We’re picking up clothes and supplies, but I am not rich. Far from it in fact. Nothing goes in this basket without my say so. Got it?”

“Sure,” Peter says, suspiciously agreeable.

Erik narrows his eyes but he can’t really chide the boy for agreeing with him. With a barely suppressed sigh, he turns the cart towards the children’s section.

Essentials first. Socks and underwear. His rough path to adulthood had taught him that as long as these were in order, everything else was negotiable. But it doesn’t take long for the weirdness of shopping for little boys’ underwear to set it and overwhelm him.

“You sure you don’t know what size you wear?” he asks, holding a pair of underpants decorated with airplanes in one hand and a pair decorated with dinosaurs in the other. He knows from a quick peek that the clothes Peter is currently wearing are tagless and the size information has faded from repeated washings.

Peter gives an unhelpful shrug and a shake of his head.

Okay. A job for Google then. A quick search suggests they start with outer clothes and then use that to figure out the inner wear.

“Go try these on,” Erik says, handing the kid two pairs of jeans before turning to look at shirts. A weird burst of air comes out of nowhere, sending the shirt swinging wildly on their hangers, some of them flying off to the floor. Erik bends to pick them up but bumps into Peter.

“These fit,” Peter says holding out the darker pair of jeans.

“How could you possibly know without even trying them on,” Erik asks as he gathers the shirts.

“They fit,” the boy insists.

Erik stands and sighs openly. He slings the shirts over the rack and takes the pair of pants Peter is stubbornly holding out towards him. Maybe the boy’ll have to learn the hard way.

“Fine, but we’re basing your underwear off these,” he says grabbing two more pairs of jeans in the same size. After a moment of mental calculation using the Google info, he grabs two packs of solid colored boxer briefs that look like a miniature version of what he himself wears. He throws them in the cart. Peter gives him a smug look of satisfaction.

Erik rolls his eyes. “Yes, you win. But if you get blue balls due to lack of circulation, I don’t wanna hear about it.”

“What are blue balls?” Peter asks loudly as they exit the kids’ department. A mother shopping with a girl no older than six gives them a filthy look of disapproval and the nearby associate looks like she’s trying to decide if she should call a Code Adam on the man who is clearly contributing to the delinquency and perversion of a minor.

Erik quickly turns the corner to get away from judgmental eyes, muttering about smart mouthed kids.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm 95% sure Charles and Erik will finally come face to face next chapter.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise! Super chapter. I wanted to move the plot forward so I refused to end the chapter until the major step I've been picturing happened. LOL. 
> 
> Note: I have never dealt with child services so the solution might be a little... unorthodox? Illegal? I don't. Roll with me!
> 
> A/N: I originally had the minor characters in this chapter as OCs. Then it started to feel like a wasted opportunity to have some easter eggs, so I went back and dropped them in.

If asked, Erik would’ve sworn he’d kept an eagle eye on Peter at the store. But unpacking the bags proves that to be a misguided belief. There are several items he knows he didn’t greenlight. The kid’s a sneak and a damned good one at that.

“Hey Smalls, did these get scanned and paid for or did you make me an unwilling accomplice to your new life of crime?” he asks, brows furrowed as he pulls out a party-sized bag of jelly beans.

“Ooh!” Peter crows with glee, making grabby hands.

Erik holds the ill-gotten goodies over his head and cocks an eyebrow.

“They got scanned,” Peter grumbles. “You just didn’t see them.”

He glares at Erik for half a second before his attention flits towards a box of marshmallow moon pies that shouldn’t be here either. Erik and his superior wing span beat him to the punch.

Peter huffs dramatically and actually stamps his foot. “But I’m _hungry_!”

“You know, if I hadn’t seen you eat half a dozen eggs and the better part of a pound of turkey bacon, I might actually believe you.”

“That was forever ago,” Peter whines, his mouth curving down into a pout. Then he tilts his head in a way that _almost _comes across as sincere and innocent. “I’m growing and I get _really _hungry.”

It’s like the boy knows those are the magic words Erik can’t ignore. Maybe he had a faster metabolism than Erik realized. Either way, Erik would never withhold food from someone who really needed it.

“Fine. If you need something to hold you over until lunch, I’ll make you a sandwich or two and you can have some fruit. The last thing you need is a sugar rush,” he says firmly.

Peter groans but noticeably doesn’t turn down the offer.

The small part of Erik that still remembers how to be a softie speaks up.

“Tell you what, if you help me clean out the guest room _and _eat something green at lunch, you can have whatever the nutrition label on this thing considers a serving of jelly beans.”

Peter’s eyes narrow and he folds his arms. “Two. You want me to do two things, I want two servings.”

Ah. The mandatory negotiation. Oh, how he enjoys haggling over every aspect of keeping this child healthy and happy.

“One,” he repeats, “and that’s being generous since you got the jelly beans and all the other junk by breaking the only rule I’ve set for you so far. ‘Nothing goes in the basket without my say so.’ Sound familiar?”

Peter glares at him mulishly.

“If one’s not to your liking, I can take the jelly beans, the moon pies, the giant bags of M&M’s and Skittles that are on my receipt but I have yet to see and which had better show up in the kitchen unopened, and…”

“Fine! Ugh!” Peter groans.

“And you have to brush, rinse, and floss immediately after,” Erik says. “I don’t want your adult teeth doomed before you even have them all.”

“That’s _three_ things!” Peter grumbles from where he’s flopped down on the couch.

Erik smiles at his small victory and finishes unloading the bags.

* * *

After a lunch where Peter has lasagna and an entire serving spoon’s worth of green beans followed by a small meltdown over the fact that a serving of jelly beans is in fact only nine jelly beans, they tackle converting the junkpile guestroom into an actual bedroom. Once he’s done pouting, Peter switches to peppering him with questions, inquisitive in that nosy way most children are.

“Where were you born,” the boy asks as they lug the weight bench downstairs to the garage. Erik is discreetly using his power to carry as much as the burden without blatantly giving himself away.

“Exeter, New Hampshire,” he says as he carefully guides them down the stairs, “but we moved to North Elizabeth, New Jersey when I was three so that’s what I consider home.”

“Are your parents still there? I’ve never had grandparents before. Will I get to meet them?”

“No,” Erik says flatly. “My parents, they both died a long time ago.”

“Oh. That sucks. What happened to them?” Peter asks, taking the stairs two by two on the way back up.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he says, squashing the pang that tries to steal through his chest at the mere mention of them.

“But—”

“I don’t walk to talk about it,” he repeats firmly. Turning, he yanks the sheets off the twin-sized bed to put in the wash.

During the trip to the laundry room and back, the first inkling of guilt tugs at him. The boy's just asking questions to find out about the only family he has left, one he hadn't even know existed. Erik may have frightened him.

But he needn’t have worried.

“When’s your birthday?” Peter asks as soon as he gets back.

“January 30th.”

“So, you’re an Aquarius?”

“So they tell me,” Erik says, shoving magazines and books into a box haphazardly. They’d probably be better off in the recycle bin, but he isn’t sure whether he’d kept them for a reason or not.

“Cool. I’m an Aries. Mom always said that explains why I have so much energy.”

Erik hums politely, not putting much stock in astrological signs himself, but he does vaguely recall Magda having more than a passing interest in it. Something about how the rising house of such-and-such impacted people’s moods and auras.

“So, you knew my mom when you were younger, right?” Peter asks as they haul the boxes to the hallway closet.

“Yes, I met her when I was 19. She was 17.”

“She had me right after she turned 18,” Peter notes. “So, she was like, what? A summer fling? A booty call?”

Erik stops, puts down the sand-filled free-standing punching bag he’s been trying with drag out of the room, and looks at Peter.

“That’s not a very nice way to speak of your mother. She deserves more respect than that.”

Peter scoffs, sets his mouth in a defiant clench. “I can say what I want. She’s not here to stop me.”

What could he possibly say to that? She’d be here if she could? That’s obviously not true. She hadn’t meant to hurt him? But she had. Magda may have been troubled, but she chose a path that left the rubble at her son's feet. He could hardly be blamed for kicking at the pile resentfully.

When Erik doesn’t come up with any rebuttal, Peter nods, more to himself than anything.

“She’s _gone_. I’m _here_. So, I’ll say what I want.”

Even though he knows that he should say something soothing and conciliatory, a proverb or something, he’s at a lost. Instead, he picks up the punching bag and goes back to dragging it.

“Right,” he hears the boy mumble under his breath.

There are no more questions after that. They work in silence for another hour before the room has enough space for a body to move around freely and they can start moving Peter in. Erik brings the shopping bags upstairs and supervises Peter hanging all his clothes to make sure nothing ends up rumpled in a pile on the floor or on top a dresser. A week’s worth of pants and shirts, two pairs of shoes, two sets of pajamas, socks, underwear, and toiletries for the both of them. Combined with enough groceries for a grown man and a constantly ravenous, nearly pubescent boy, it had set Erik back several hundred dollars. It’s more than he’d planned to spend, but, aside from the few things Peter had snuck in without his knowledge, nothing in the cart was frivolous. And, honestly, it gave him a bit of a warm and fuzzy thrill to provide for the boy. His son, a fact Erik still has trouble wrapping his head around. Still, that familiar anxiety of trying to make his money stretch swirls in his belly even as Erik knows it’s irrational. While he’d warned Peter that he’s not rich, he’s not poor either. His self-enforced frugality means he has a more than healthy rainy-day fund. It’s just hard to shake the years of ‘if you buy this, you can’t have that’ thriftiness whispering in his ear.

It’s the same whispers that like to remind him that he’s completely alone, unconnected. That’s not true anymore either.

* * *

After dinner, where he manages to get Peter to eat some steamed broccoli alongside his loaded baked potato in exchange for one marshmallow moon pie, they start to wind down for the night. While the boy is showering, Erik calls into work to let them know he won’t be coming on Monday due to a doctor’s appointment. He choses not to mention that the visit is not for himself. To his surprise, his boss is actually pleased to hear he’s finally taking off for one of the dozens of personal days he’s banked over the past two years.

After a shower that’s so suspiciously quick that Erik double checks to confirm that both soap and water were involved, Peter settles on the couch to watch his pre-negotiated hour of television. Out of habit, Erik starts straightening up for the night. He likes his space to be neat and tidy, a tried and true method of making sure nothing gets misplaced or left behind. But now it seems like every time he turns around something is in a pile like it’s been knocked over and clumsily re-stacked. Could be the cost of having a kid in this house, but he hasn’t actually seen Peter knock anything over aside from the drinking glass last night. Or, he thinks with a mild chuckle, maybe it’s that mystery draft, the origin of which he hasn’t been able to locate.

* * *

Monday morning comes quickly, after a hurried breakfast where no junk food was haggled, he and Peter hop a train and head to the DCFS-approved doctor. After Erik signs them in, they take a seat in the colorful waiting room painted with cartoon monkeys and birds hanging on trees draped with sweeping vines. There are a treasure trove of books and interesting looking toys in the corner, but Peter quickly accepts the iPad the receptionist offers him and immediately sets to playing some type of bouncy ball puzzle game.

“Well, that's certainly a change from _Highlights for Kids_, huh?” Erik comments ruefully.

Peter glances at him briefly in confusion before going back to his game.

After about twenty minutes, the door swings open and a nurse wearing a smiley face scrub top appears.

“Peter Lehnsherr,” she says with a smile.

“That’s us,” Erik answers, standing, pulling Peter, who is still engrossed in his game, along with him.

Begrudgingly, the boy puts down the device to allow the nurse to take his vitals and statistics.

Seventy-five pounds and just a smidge under five feet tall. Just below average in weight for a boy his age, slightly above average for height. Not surprising since he’s on the thin, rangy side. Heart rate a little low but not outside of the range of a very athletic child. Eyes, ears, and lungs all healthy.

After she notates Peter’s chart, she slides the metal clipboard into the plastic tray mounted behind the door and informs them the doctor will be in to see them soon.

While they wait, Erik finally gives in, pulls out his own phone, and starts searching for pediatric dentists. Given Peter’s constant yen for sugary treats, they definitely need to be proactive about teeth.

He's lost track of time thumbing through the results by the time the door finally swings open. Erik looks up from his search and is surprised to see three adults entering: the nurse from earlier, a man in a green graph check dress shirt with a stethoscope around his neck, and a petite lady in a white dress shirt, khaki pants, and black flats.

“Misters Lehnsherr?” the doctor says in greeting as he collects Peter’s chart from the back of the door. “My name is Dr. Banner. A lot of the kids call me ‘Dr. B.’”

He smiles, big and friendly and extends a hand for both Erik and Peter to shake.

“You’ve already met my nurse Betty and this,” he says gesturing to the lady on the far end, “is Ms. Moira McTaggert from DCFS.”

She waves politely with a small smile.

“Since this is a child welfare check up, Dad, I’m going to ask you, to go with Ms. McTaggert so she can get some information from you for her records and Betty and I’ll hang out here with Peter and give him a once over. How’s that sound?”

Erik doesn’t know how these things should go but it doesn’t strike him as unreasonable. He nods and tucks his phone away. But just as he goes to stand, Peter slips grips his hand and squeezes, hard. He stops and looks at the boy who suddenly looks uncharacteristically skittish.

“I think it'd be better if I stay with Peter for the check up and then do the questions afterwards,” he suggests, now hesitant himself, Peter’s wariness triggering his own.

Ms. McTaggert steps forward. “It’s probably best if we take care of this while they do his checkup. We’re just going next door. I'm going to need some history from you about everything that happened.”

She gives him a meaningful look.

Figuring she means talking about Magda, Erik nods. He turns to Peter. “Alright, you hang out here with Dr. B and Nurse Betty. I’ll just be one door over. Afterwards we can go out for lunch. Whatever you want.”

The prospect of junky fast food seems to placate him and he nods, letting Erik’s hand go.

Erik and Ms. McTaggert head into the adjoining room. Erik tenses when he sees a man standing in the corner. Kind of hulking, just this side of menacing, with hair gelled back. Despite his light blue dress shirt, khaki pants, he looks more like a brawler than a child safety advocate.

“Mr. Lensherr, this is my co-worker James Howlett. He’ll just be sitting in to observe.”

“Okay,” Erik says inanely since it’s more of a statement than a request for permission.

Once they’re all seated, Ms. McTaggert opens her folder. She flips a few pages before uncapping her pen.

“Alright, Mr. Lensherr—”

“Erik,” he insists.

She smiles and nods her head. “Then please call me Moira. Erik, can you tell me a bit about how Peter ended up here with you?”

Erik nods and recaps coming home to find the boy on his door step. He gives a brief summary of his efforts to notify DCFS and what he’s done to care for the boy since then.

“It sounds like you’ve done a lot to help the boy feel welcomed,” she says as she makes notes in the folder. “This must’ve all come as quite a shock to you.”

“That’s an understatement,” Erik agrees with a nervous chuckle looking at Howlett who gives him what was probably meant to be a smile but looked more a disgruntled grimace.

“Can you tell me, does Peter have a primary care provider?”

Erik half-shrugs, half-shakes his head. “He’s only been with me for three days so I’m still getting things in place. I’m not sure what foster care or his mother were doing before now.”

She nods and ticks some type of box. “And to your knowledge, has Peter needed any type of emergency care in the last six months?”

Erik shrugs again. “I don’t know. He hasn’t said anything and I didn’t think to ask. Since he kind of took off on his own, I don’t have any paper work for him.”

“Did he mention why he chose to leave his assigned care facility in Cincinnati?” she asks, her gaze sharpening.

“He was in Cincinnati?” Erik echoes, amazed by how far the child had travel.

"Yes, he came along way to get to you."

There's a bit of an unspoken question, but he's unsure what response she's looking for.

Erik pauses, thinking back. “He didn't say anything about where he'd been staying. He gave me a letter from his mother. I just assumed he was looking for family. I know that's what I would've done when I was in his shoes if it had been an option.”

She lifts a brow. “You spent time in group homes?”

“Yes.”

“May I ask why,” she prods.

His muscles tense instinctively. The feigned innocent questions set him on edge, reminding him of the gotcha questions from social workers past. But he had nothing to hide.

“Didn’t have anywhere else to go. My dad died when I was eleven, my mom when I was thirteen. No other family.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” she says and her voice does sound genuinely sympathetic. “What agency handled your case?”

Erik sighs. “Child services. Elizabeth, New Jersey.”

She makes a few notes in the margin. “Thank you for that. So, you said that you hadn’t discussed medical care with Peter. But you have had a few days to observe him. Has he shown any signs of drug use or alcohol dependency?”

Erik frowns. “No. He seems normal if a bit all over the place.”

“All over the place? Like jittery? Or spacey? Like he might be on some type of uppers or hallucinogens?”

He shakes his head emphatically. “No, like he’s on a sugar rush. He craves junk food like most kids his age and he seems to have a lot of energy burn. The kind of thing that’ll probably make him really good at track or soccer once we get everything settled.”

“Those sound like excellent ideas,” she says and scribbles some more. It’s starting to get on Erik’s nerves. He can feel the hum of the metal in the pen she’s holding, in the brads of the folder she’s writing in. It calls out reassuring him he's not as vulnerable as he feels. He takes a deep breath, pushing the sensation away.

The silence stretches as she notates. Erik glances over to Howlett who gives that not-at-all-comforting smile again. He's starting to feel like Howlett's more 'back up muscle' than 'observant co-worker.'

“Alright, Erik. I’m going to ask a few questions that might sound judgy, but they’re not meant to be. They might make you feel a bit uncomfortable, but they’re necessary so we have a full picture of what's happened. Okay?”

He nods.

“To your knowledge, has Peter ever had any contact with the police?”

“Not as far as I know,” Erik says, knowing that it’s a woefully inadequate assurance.

“You said you took him shopping. Did he seem wary of security guards or loss prevention officers?”

Erik thinks. “No. He didn’t seem to pay them any mind.”

“As far as you know, has Peter ever had sexual intercourse or contact of any kind?”

Erik flinches. “He’s eleven.”

She nods, her face carefully neutral. "I understand. Is that a yes or a no?"

“_No_. He...” Erik blinks a few times, realizes he's only assuming the answer. He sighs.

"Not that I know of."

Moira ticks another box.

“Prior to arriving at your home, do you have any idea how Peter may have been paying for food, water, transportation, or any of the other things he needed for a trip that's eighteen hours by bus? We don't have any indication he had more than a few days of lunch money saved up.”

Erik feels nausea swirling in his belly and at the back of his tongue. Peter had traveled nearly seven hundred miles. By himself. “Are you asking him these same questions?”

Moira pauses. “Yes.”

“Will I be made aware of his responses?”

“If we can clear you as an appropriate guardian for Peter.”

Erik sits up straighter. “Approve me? I’m his father. Why wouldn’t I be his guardian?”

Moira studies him. In the corner, James sits up straighter.

“Are you aware that there is no record of a Peter Lehnsherr is Cincinnati’s Child Services system? No one’s ever heard of him.”

Erik looks at the both, his brow furrowed. “Well, clearly he exists and he comes from somewhere.”

“He does,” she acknowledges. “His description, particularly that silver hair on an eleven-year-old, matches Pietro Maximoff, a boy who went to school four days ago and never returned home. His foster parents reported him missing within the hour.”

She places down several pictures that are clearly Peter taken against a blue background at different ages, the boy a little bit older in each.

“Which begs the question: why are you bringing a missing child to the doctor under an assumed name?”

Erik is stunned, his fingers and toes tingling in shock. Did the boy lie to him?

“He… he told me his name was Peter Lehnsherr.”

“And you took his word for it?” She pressed.

“Why wouldn’t I?” Erik asks stumbling over the words as his mind races to review everything he thought he knew up to this point. 

“Do you know the penalty for illegally transporting a child across state lines?” Howlett pipes in, finally joining the conversation, his voice low and growly. “It’s a federal offense, Bub.”

“I didn’t…”

“Look,” Moira intervenes, “We just want what’s best for Peter. So, we’ll take custody until—”

“Is Magda really his mother? Is she… Pietro’s mother?” Erik asks numbly.

Moira stops, peers at him like that might help her understand the motive behind his question. “According to his file yes, Magda Eisenhardt is the mother of Pietro Maximoff.”

“Then, the letter… the one I told you about," Erik sputters. "He always has it, folded up in his back pocket. It's from her. Explaining that he’s my son and asking me to take care of him if something happens to her. Read it.”

Now it’s Moira’s turn to frown. “That’s not enough to let you—”

“And I have a picture of my dad,” he pulls out his wallet, fingers fumbling. “As a boy. He had that same silver hair. See? It runs on his side of the family, but I took after my mother’s side.”

Moira takes the photo, examines it. “It’s a lovely picture, Erik, but—”

“There has to be some way,” Erik blurts, inexplicably desperate. “There has to be something we can do. He wants to be with me and it’s what his mother wanted. Isn’t that the always the first option? To keep family together if possible?”

Moira and James look at Erik and then each other.

* * *

Two hours later, they’re back home. Together. They’ve both given cheek swabs for a DNA test. DCFS has a photo copy of both Magda’s letter and the picture of Jakob Lehnsherr, age eight. Erik has an address for a DCFS office where they both have to show up every day in person to prove they’re still in the city until the results of the test prove paternity. There is an agreement that a social worker can drop by to check in on them any time, day or night without warning. Erik has been given a very strong warning not to travel outside of the area.

“I’m sorry,” Peter—no, _Pietro _says softly when they get home.

“Go to your room. No electronics, no junk food until I say otherwise,” Erik says, exhaustion weighing at his voice, but his tone brooking no argument.

For once, there's no haggling and the boy disappears.

Erik heads into the living room and drops down onto the couch. His temples are throbbing, a headache stabbing behind his eyes, and he can hear the faint tinkering of metal as objects in the room tremble with his mood. He toes off his shoes and let his head roll back onto the couch cushions. He’s mentally sorting through the alcohol he has on hand when the doorbell rings.

What now?

Pulling himself to his feet, he pads to the front door and opens it wearily. And jolts.

It’s the stranger.

“Hi, my name is Charles Xavier. This is going to sound weird but I’m here to help.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, it's vaguely implied that Peter may have done or had some unsavory things done to him on his way to Erik. Rest assured that is not the case and it will be cleared up later in the story.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charles' first impressions of Erik and Peter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I HAVE EMERGED VICTORIOUS!!! 
> 
> But seriously, I refuse to give up on this story no matter how stuck I feel. Thank you to the dozens of kind people who read, commented, and gave kudos to a seemingly abandoned WIP. I'm already working on the next chapter!

“Hi, my name is Charles Xavier. This is going to sound weird but I’m here to help.”

Charles extends his hand in proper greeting.

Erik pointedly does not reciprocate.

“It does sound weird. Very much so,” he replies, curt and to the point. “And I’m not interested in whatever you’re selling.”

He moves to close the door.

“Maybe not for your sake, but for your son you most definitely should be.”

Erik stiffens and his gaze narrows. A buzz of not-quite-aggressive distrust whirls around him, nearly tangible in its intensity, making Charles’ skin prickle with caution. It’s enough to give Charles a moment of pause. He’s certain he can keep the man from harming him, but not without using his own abilities in a way that he’s sworn to never do again.

Instead, Charles touches two fingers to his temple as subtly as he can, his mind tip-toeing delicately to read the man, to find a key to easing his suspicion. He finds a whirl of consciousness, prickly and itchy, annoyed flashes of _what now _and _who is this weirdo_, but… there’s more, something… promising. Charles is considering a deeper dive when an odd, unidentifiable part of Erik’s brain hums to life. At the same time an invisible force tugs at the metal of Charles’ belt buckle, the coins in his pocket, the eyelets of his shoes. The pull is so soft as to nearly be imperceptible, like a person wiggling their toes inside their shoes to make sure nothing is broken after a bad fall. Most people probably wouldn’t have even noticed. Charles has to consciously school his features to not show his surprised delight.

How marvelous!

It’s almost like he’s tripped an alarm. Something in Erik’s subconscious must have sensed Charles’ intrusion and it responded like a person checking the windows and doors after hearing a strange noise. All Charles is able to discern before his quiet mental retreat is a supreme sense of safety in metal. Oh, how he wants to ask!

Charles has long been convinced that he’s not the only one with unique… gifts. Raven and her shapeshifting are proof. But finding others has always been frustratingly elusive. He’s chatted online with some who seem genuine in their claims of super strength, pyrokineticism, and other inexplicable powers. Unfortunately, none have been willing to meet in real life, not wanting to risk that he’s some shady government sort with nefarious intentions. Running into another of their kind in person is so incredibly rare. To find one without even meaning to… Nothing short of serendipity. It further cements Charles’ surety that he’s doing the right thing. 

“I have no son,” Erik says coolly.

Charles mouth flattens into a thin line and he feels a swell of pity. He doesn’t need his powers to sense Erik’s intense desire for privacy or his instinctive dislike of the unknown.

“You shouldn’t say such things,” Charles says in a not unkind tone. “It would break the boy’s heart if he heard them.”

Eric frowns, confused by Charles’ refusal to accept that no child resides here. He projections his suspicion quite loudly, questions flitting rapidly through his mind, until he seems to settle on one that makes sense to him.

“Did DCFS send you?”

Charles blinks, hesitatingly slightly. A quick glance through Erik’s memories reveals the day’s events and the mandate Child Services had put in place while they sorted out the mess of Peter’s guardianship.

“Ah… yes. They did,” Charles says, recovering quickly. “They thought you might need help. I specialize in trauma and grief recovery.”

He pulls out his wallet and plucks out a card advertising his very real child and family psychiatric practice.

Erik accepts it and looks it over before nodding, satisfied for now. He steps back to allow Charles entrance. Relief of finally understanding who Charles is and why he’s there rolls over him then shifts into an awkward, self-consciousness.

“I suppose you want to meet the boy.”

“If it wouldn’t be too terribly inconvenient,” Charles says, stepping inside. At Erik’s prompting, he removes his hat and coat, placing them on the hooks in the entry way, and toes out of his shoes before stepping onto immaculate carpet.

“Peter!” Erik calls out as he leads Charles into a living area.

Charles takes advantage of Erik’s misconception, not bothering to hide his interest as he studies the space. Other than the large TV and a gaming console, nothing in the space is particularly fancy, but the shelves hold bric-a-brac, each piece deeply unique, telling the story of the person who took the time to collect it. Shot glasses from various bars, bottle caps, postcards, a smattering of pictures in which Erik is the only constant. It speaks to a transient life, one where elaborate souvenirs would be cumbersome, but a desire to remember still remains.

Charles is pulled from his musings by the stampeding of feet down the stairs. A young boy dressed in maroon sweatpants, a black tee with a flaming basketball, and sporting a shock of steel gray hair clatters to a stop at the foot of the staircase.

“What?” Peter asks, sullen and annoyed by the two men staring at him.

Charles reaches out, hoping to find a place to start. He’s met with an unexpected discovery. A mind, lightning fast, far too quick to enter. He’s never encountered anything like it. It’s like double Dutch ropes going whip fast, a carousel circling at unconscionable speeds, a revolving door rotating fast enough to throw off sparks. Trying to get a read leaves Charles dizzy and a bit queasy after only a few seconds, having to pull back empty-handed.

It’s all he can to do to suppress a gleeful giggle. Two biologically-related, mutated persons in one home! Although Charles had ultimately pursued his license to practice psychiatry, wanting to help people in a more immediate, tangible way, he’d completed a Master’s in both genetics and psychiatry. His fingers are itching to pull out a Punnett’s Square and get a full family history of them both.

Instead he clears his throat and steps forward.

“Hello, Peter. My name is Charles Xavier. I hear you’ve had a pretty exciting week.”

Peter looks from Charles to Erik and back before nodding his head in agreement. Although Charles can’t touch the boy’s thought, the mention of how he got here brings forth a great sense of sadness and anxiety, the aura that originally pulled Charles towards the unassuming house. The grief dampens Charles’ excitement and reminds him of why he’s really here.

“Why don’t we take a seat and you can tell me all about it?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Erik's impression of Charles, Dadneto on duty, and some much needed therapy.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not quite as much Dadneto and therapy as I'd planned but I'm pleased with how it turned out and I didn't want to break my posting momentum. Hope you like!

While the doctor speaks with Peter, Erik sits at the breakfast bar with his laptop. Far enough to give them a semblance of privacy while keeping the newcomer in his line of sight. He'd been planning to pull up a work project, but curiosity gets the best of him and Erik googles Charles instead. Reassuringly, there’s a website to go along with the business card. The site is very professional and has been active for several years. After clicking through half a dozen tabs and links, Erik finally allows himself to relax. Maybe his paranoia is baseless, left over from the years when he couldn’t afford to take people on their word.

Taking a deep breath, he hits the back key a few times then goes through the site again at a more leisurely pace, actually reading this time. Xavier has dozens of accolades. Erik envisions an office wall, lined top to bottom with polished frames. Scrolling down, he reads the description blurb beneath each award. Charles is apparently a combination of Einstein and Mother Theresa.

_Award for Advancing Minority Mental Health._

_Outstanding Research in Children/ Adolescent Psychiatry._

_Outstanding Contributions to the Care and Understanding of Disaster Victims_.

He continues scrolling. One particular award makes him pause.

_Research Advancing the Biopsychosocial Aspects of Psychiatry._

Opening a separate tab, he copies and pastes the unfamiliar term. _Biopsychosocial Model: The interplay of biology, psychology, and social factors in a person’s development. _

Interesting. He rabbit holes that the search results until it becomes too technical for him to follow.

Head swimming with new information, he switches back to Charles’ site, landing on a testimonial page.

_I was really struggling in school and getting in trouble a lot at home. Dr. Xavier gave me the tools I needed to make good choices. He’s the best! _-George, Age 12.

_Mr. Charles is really nice and he helped me not be afraid anymore! _-Kylee, Age 6.

Erik wonders what their issue had been and what Charles had done for them. Obviously because of their age and confidentiality laws, the voluntary blurbs are all there is to be had, but it's encouraging nonetheless. He reads a few more, some from patients as old as twenty-one and a handful from grateful parents. Flipping over to his search tab, he Yelps the good doctor, to see if there are any 'You promised you'd help me!!!' a la Sixth Sense. But the reviews there are just as glowing.

Almost disgruntled by how disgustingly competent and nice the man seems to be, Erik jumps back to the site and clicks on the 'About Me' section. There he’s greeted by a picture of the doctor. It’s a semi-candid photo, not much thought put into the pose. He's facing the camera, not doing anything special. Curly waves fall lazily over his brow in the photograph much like in real life. His eyes are not quite as brilliant a blue, instead having more a tinted glass look. In the photo, Charles’ tie is askew like he’s very close to pulling it off. His lips are only just slightly tilted, like the photographer caught him just before a laugh can break out. It makes him look painfully young for such a distinguished practitioner.

Haltingly, Erik right-clicks on the photo.

“Thank you for allowing me to drop in on you on such short notice,” Charles’ voice interrupts.

Erik slams the laptop guiltily then cringes as such harsh treatment of a possession he’d saved months to afford. 

“Everything went well?” he asks, angry and embarrassed all at once.

Charles nods, ignoring Erik’s sharp tone. Instead, his eyes twinkle with mirth, like he knows some secret that’s too good to share.

“Peter is a somewhat reluctant to open up, as is to be expected, but I’ve already identified some areas where we could really stabilize him and help him grow. I’d like to start off with meeting two times a week and then reduce it by half each time we meet our therapy goal. Does that sound agreeable?”

Erik nods, ready to be rid of the man. It’s not like he actually has any choice anyway. They agree that Charles will visit again in three days for their next session. Then the man is out the door, as cheerful as Mary Poppins herself. The dull headache Erik has been nursing for the last hour seems to go with him.

Good riddance.

For now.

Erik turns to Peter who is still sitting on an ottoman in the living room.

“You hungry?”

The boy nods, unusually quiet. He slinks to the table with no argument which almost makes Erik want to check for fever, but he knows the boy is probably just talked out. Focusing on a dinner that will keep the kid full without requiring a midnight snack, Erik makes grilled cheese sandwiches on the stovetop. He makes them fancy, cutting thick slices of cheddar and gruyere cheese. While that melts, he heats up the leftover spicy tomato soup he learned to make from scratch a few days ago off of a YouTube video. He plates the food and brings them to the table. Peter is slow to start eating, but quickly picks up the pace. By the time he’s finished two sandwiches and a bowl of soup just as large as Erik’s, he’s clearly on the mend and somehow thinks now is the time to haggle for treats.

“I answered all of his questions!”

Erik raises a brow.

“He wouldn’t have been here at all if you'd been honest from the start,” he reminds the boy. “In most cultures, the fact that I’m feeding you at all right now would be considered undeserved mercy.”

Peter pouts. A minute later he switches to grumps when the pouting has no effect.

“So, what am I supposed to do now?” Peter finally asks.

“First, shower,” Erik answers as he gathers dishes. “Then, bed.”

“Bed?!” Peter blurts, outraged. “The sun's barely down. Can’t I at least watch TV for a little bit?”

“You’re still on punishment.”

Peter goes limp in his chair, slide down as far as he can without slithering all the way to the floor. “I’ve been on punishment_ forever!_”

“You’ve been on punishment for two hours and seventeen minutes,” Erik says after checking his watch. “And that includes the hour Dr. Xavier was here and the time it took to cook and eat dinner.”

The boy huffs, the angsty gust of air puffing his hair only for it to flop back down again, in the most emo of swoops. “How long am I on punishment then?”

Erik pauses, considering. He has no idea how long is even appropriate for an eleven-year-old but running away and lying to his newfound guardian and the authorities warrants more than twenty minutes in the corner.

“If you can follow the rules and stay out of trouble, punishment ends at breakfast day after tomorrow.”

"We don't have any rules!"

"Yes, we do," Erik counters. "So far, 'Nothing goes in the basket without my permission' and 'tell the truth.' So far, you're oh-for-two."

"You didn't tell me about the second one until after I broke it."

"You knew it was wrong while you were doing it. And you still broke the first one _after _I told you," Erik points out.

The boy sighs with all the drama his preteen body can muster. “Fine. _Gah._ I might as well be in jail!”

“Oh, please. This is _nothing _like jail,” Erik says sharply. “Trust me.”

Peter abruptly sits up, his eyes going wide. “You’ve been to jail?! Whatdja do?”

He follows Erik into the kitchen. “Whaaaatja doooo? Come on! _Tell_ me!”

Erik grits his teeth, already regretting his thoughtless retort. But he can’t lie while punishing the boy for lying.

“We’re not talking about that right now,” he says instead, stacking the dishes carefully in the dishwasher.

“When _will _we talk about it?” Peter says, sticking his face between Erik and the dish rack.

“When I can trust you,” Erik says firmly and finally, slamming the door hard and fast enough that Peter has to move quick to keep his hair from getting caught.

Finally sensing the danger in continuing to push, the boy sighs and turns to head upstairs.

But not without humming the theme song to COPS.

Erik barely resists the urge to flick a spoon at the back of his head.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erik makes a discovery which leads to unexpected bonding.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mega chapter!!! Y'all... this piece pulled it out of me. But I really wanted to keep the whole thing together. Be prepared for feels because Dadneto is baring his soul.

It’s by the very skin of his teeth, but Peter manages to survive the full thirty-six hours of his sentence without breaking the existing rules or doing anything that required the creation of additional rules. That doesn’t mean the time passed without wheedling or whining. Testing boundaries is apparently his preset, but thankfully he doesn’t seem inclined towards outright defiance.

As a reward, Erik tosses the last two Moon Pies into Peter’s lunch kit, one more than he usually allows at any given meal. The unnatural, nuclear yellow color is wholly unappealing to Erik, but Peter swears by the banana-flavored monstrosities. Throwing the empty box in the trash, Erik adds the treat/ bargaining chip to the growing grocery list. Hilariously, and slightly concerning budget-wise, Pietro actually eats _more _than Erik does. They’re quickly running out of everything edible not even a week after their last shopping trip. Bulk clubs never made sense financially before since Erik lived alone, but he might seriously have to consider joining one since Peter’s appetite will likely only increase as he enters his teen years.

Erik puts the shark-faced lunch kit in the fridge for now to keep everything cool until it’s time to leave for school. He’d usually sleep an hour more, but he’s up early to try to tackle a problem that seems to already be brewing. Peter’s been enrolled in school for three whole days. It only took two days for Peter’s folder to come back with yellow stoplight behavior stickers and notes that he’s out of his seat and off-task far too often. When asked about it, Peter says he simply can’t sit still that long. Given his similar behavior at home, Erik is inclined to believe it’s not intentional disobedience but rather something they need to formulate a plan for. To help Peter to put his best foot forward with his new teacher, Erik decides a trip to the park, letting the kid burn off some energy first thing in the morning before school could help. 

“Up and at ‘em,” Erik says, flipping on the light as he enters Peter’s room.

The boy doesn’t respond. He’s buried under the blankets, only a few tuffs of his hair sticking out from underneath. Using his powers, Erik gives the mattress springs a firm shake. Groggy and confused, Peter finally cracks an eye open.

“Whaaa?”

“Get up and get dressed. Shorts, t-shirt, tennis shoes.”

With a yawn, Peter looks slowly towards the window and then equally slowly back at Erik. “But it’s still nighttime?”

“It’s 5:45 a.m.”

He stares dully at Erik who can barely suppress his laugh. Clearly that information means less than nothing to the kid this early in the morning.

“Up, dressed, downstairs. ASAP.”

With a sharp tug, Erik pulls the blanket completely off the bed on his way out.

“Hey!”

Erik doesn’t bother to smother his laugh this time.

Twenty long minutes later, Peter is at the kitchen table, dressed but still quite droopy-eyed. For someone so energetic during the day, he’s almost comically pokey before sunrise.

“School doesn’t start until 8:15. Why are we up so early?” Peter mumbles, his chin pillowed on his folded arms which rest impolitely on the table.

Erik slides a plate of eggs and a glass of orange juice in front of him. “Since you told me you feel like you have too much energy at school, I figured I’d let you get some out at the park trail before school. Hopefully, that’ll help you focus and stay out of trouble.”

The idea had come to Erik the night before. Between the doctor, school, and DCFS, they’ve spent an awful lot of time sitting and waiting, in one office or the other, all of which required Peter to be seen and not heard. Between that, school, and being confined to his room due to behavior, he’s probably getting pretty antsy. A boy his age should have some kind of outlet to stay out of trouble. If Peter doesn’t like, they’ll try something else.

Erik sips his coffee as Peter devours his breakfast, eating everything but the plate and cutlery. By the time, he’s done and they leave the house, he’s showing signs of perking up. Once the park breaks the horizon line, he’s actually excited.

“Why didn’t you bring me here before?” he asks, skip walking to get there more quickly.

“We’ve been busy.”

“Ooh!” Peter hoots, ignoring Erik’s answer, his eyes going wide with excitement.

The park features a complete, brightly-colored playground: a swing set, teeter totters, a metal climbing fort with slides and monkey bars attached, rocking horses, and a merry-go-round, all plopped in the middle of a gigantic sandbox. Surrounding it is about a mile and half looping concrete walkway, allowing parents to walk or jog while simultaneously keeping an eye on their kid playing in the center.

“Can I play on the swings?”

“We won’t have time,” Erik says. He checks his watch again. “We’re going to do three laps and we have to be back home in time for you to shower and dress for school.”

“But once I’m done, any time leftover I can spend on the swings,” Peter rephrases, seemingly unphased by Erik’s explanation.

Erik sighs and then relents. It wouldn’t hurt to let him swing for a few minutes. “Sure. Feeling fast?”

“Faster than you!” Peter says with a cocky smirk.

“Oh yeah?” Erik laughs as they reach the concrete trail. “Race you then. Ready, steady, go!”

Peter takes off. And disappears.

Erik stumbles to a stop.

_What the hell? _

His heart is racing and panic starts to build until he suddenly turns and sees Pietro about three feet behind where he’d started from just seconds ago.

“Can I swing now?” Peter asks with an exhilarated grin.

Erik blinks, his mind completely blank with astonishment.

“I told ya I was really fast!” the boy crows, clearly enjoying Erik’s confusion.

Finally, Erik forms a thought. He pulls a quarter out of his pocket and hands it to Peter. “Hold this and do one more lap.”

“Now?” Peter asks, not pleased with having his swing time delayed.

“Yes, now. Please,” Erik asks.

“Fine.”

And the boy disappears again only to reappear once more, a foot or so behind Erik. Almost faster than Erik’s brain can process the metal of the coin being near, then far, then near again.

“You… you have a power,” Erik says softly.

“Umm… yeah?” Peter says hesitantly, like he’s only now realizing that maybe it’s a secret he shouldn’t have revealed. “But I don’t… I don’t have to use it if you don’t want me to.”

He shyly holds the coin back out to Erik.

Erik mentally floats the coin back to his own grip. “No. It’s fine.”

Peter gasps. “Holy shit!”

“_Language.”_

“Sorry! I just… I’ve never met anybody else who had powers! Well, physical powers anyway,” he corrects. “You know mom had the emotional hoodoo going on, but… wow!”

Erik leads him over to the swings. No need for him to get all sweaty when Peter has already put in nearly eight miles in about two minutes. They both take a seat.

“You can’t tell anybody,” Erik tells him quietly.

Peter pushes off and starts swinging, slow and easy. “What happened to ‘tell the truth’?”

“This is different.”

“How?” the boy asks.

“It’s important to tell the truth because the adults around you need the right information to take care of you,” Erik says. “But sometimes the truth might put you in danger. Like if your teacher asks who’s going to pick you up after school, they’re making sure you’re taken care of. But if a stranger asks who picks you up after school, they might be asking because they want to do something bad to you.”

Peter nods slowly. “That makes sense, I guess.”

“Not a lot of people can do what we can do. We’re special,” Erik adds. “It’s a good thing, but you won’t be able to tell everybody about it. People don’t understand and they might want to take you or hurt you. To keep you safe, I need you to swear you won’t tell anyone without my say so. Promise?”

Peter nods again, uncharacteristically solemn. “Promise.”

“Alright. Swing your heart out then,” Erik says, taking advantage of the metal chains of his own swing to do an easy back and forth.

Peter swings, quickly building up speed. Not so fast as to go invisible, but more than enough to loop over the top of the swing set, nearly giving Erik a heart attack. After about twenty minutes of death-defying swinging, Erik carefully brings the metal chains of Peter’s swing to a gradual halt as he senses the first hint of metal about three minutes out.

“We gotta go, kid.”

“Aww,” Peter moans. “Can we come back tomorrow?”

“Absolutely.”

Peter cheers and jumps off the swing seat. “Race you home!”

“Slow down!” Erik yells.

* * *

School goes better. Peter receives two yellows and two greens for behavior, a vast improvement from yesterday’s two yellows and two reds and the likely overly-generous all yellows of the day before.

“Look!” Peter beams proudly. “Running this morning really helped. I felt wiggly but not as much.”

“Great job,” Erik cheers enthusiastically.

“So, that means I get two Moon Pies, right?” Peter asks, with a look in his eyes saying he can already taste the sugary goodness.

“Not right now,” Erik says. In addition to being out, he’s already had two today, and it’s probably not a great idea to train the kid to expect immediate gratification for every little thing he does.

“But I did something good!” Peter argues.

“And I’m proud of you,” Erik reassures him. He thinks for a moment.

“How about this: for each green sticker you get, I’ll add five minutes to your TV time for that day. If you make it a whole week without any red stickers, we’ll go to Marble Slab for ice cream Friday on the way home from school.”

Peter tilts his head, considering. “So, I get ten extra minutes of TV time today?”

“Yep.”

“Deal!”

Of course, Peter almost immediately makes Erik regret it. He chooses a ten-minute GoNoodle video that can be streamed on the TV from the gaming console and makes Erik dance along. Erik will begrudgingly admit the indoor recess activity video is fun, but he also uses the metal in the curtain rods to make sure no one can see into the living room.

After a reasonable afternoon snack of tuna fish sandwiches, grapes, and fruit juice, they’re settled at the kitchen table and Peter’s working his way through a language arts assignment. The instructions are to circle the subject, box the verb, and end the sentence with the appropriate punctuation. They’d worked through the three examples together and then Erik had allotted him twenty minutes to complete the remaining sentences before he checked the boy’s work.

They don’t make it the full twenty minutes.

“What’re you doing?

Erik looks up from his computer. Peter is sitting sideways in his chair, twirling his neon-colored pencil through his fingers. A quick glance down shows the boy completed four more problems before veering into doodling in the margins and then apparently completely losing the thread.

“I’m working. Like you should be,” Erik says with a pointed look at the abandoned worksheet.

Peter sighs and straightens up, putting his pencil point back to paper.

Five minutes and two sentences later, Erik looks up to see Peter staring back at the ceiling fan rotating in the living room.

Erik taps the table with his finger. Peter’s head snaps forward and he glances at Erik guiltily before looking back at his paper.

The third time, no additional sentences have been completed and Peter is tracing an outline of his writing hand with his non-dominant hand. Across the front of his homework.

“Peter!”

The boy startles so hard, the pencil lead audibly snaps.

“Sorry!”

Erik sighs. Apparently, the yellow stickers have all been hard-earned and well-deserved.

“You’re never going to finish if you don’t focus.”

“I’m trying!” Peter insists. “It’s just… it’s boring!”

“With your speed, you could’ve been done ten minutes ago.”

“The pencil would just break and the paper would tear,” Peter grumbles.

Erik lets a surprise bark of laughter slip out. _Of course_ he's tried it.

“What are _you_ doing?” Peter asks as he pulls his feet up onto the cushion of the chair. At least he’s not wearing shoes this time.

“I’m doing homework. Just like you.”

Erik spins his laptop around to show the online module he’s working through.

“You have homework? How?” Peter asks, amazed of the idea of adults having to dredge through boring home assignments.

“I work during the day and I take classes online at night,” Erik explains. “I’m working on my bachelor’s degree. I’m little behind, though, because of all that’s been going on.”

“Bachelor’s,” Peter sounds out slowly, parsing the syllables. “That’s college, right?”

“Yep.”

“I don’t think I want to go to college,” he says staring over his knees at his incomplete school work.

“You don’t have to. It’s not for everybody,” Erik says with a shrug. “If you still feel the same when you’re older, we can look into trade school or something.”

Peter looks up and raises a brow.

“What if I don’t want to go to school at all?”

“You mean quitting and not graduating high school?” Erik asks in clarification.

“Yeah!” he says, his voice going high with excitement and his face brightening.

Erik shakes his head. “No. Sorry, bud. That’s non-negotiable”

The excitement is replaced by a storm cloud.

“Why? You just school’s not for everybody.”

“_College_ is not for everyone. But you have to at least finish high school. It’s important.”

“Why? I don’t any of this stuff,” Peter exclaims, apparently ready to dig in.

“Yes, you do,” Erik says softly, not wanting to turn this into a battle of wills. “I’m not saying you have to graduate, go to Harvard, and become a fancy doctor. But you definitely have to finish the fifth grade.”

Peter looks unconvinced.

“School is hard. I get it,” Erik says. “But even your lowest level jobs want at least a high school diploma. Without that you’re locked out. And _that’s _when trouble comes looking for you. Next thing you know, you’re in jail sewing luxury polos for fifteen cents a day.”

Peter tilts his head, his eyes narrowing. “So, are you gonna tell me now how you know so much about jail?”

Erik sighs and closes his laptop. Fine.

“I told you my parents died a long time ago, right?”

Peter nods.

“Well, when it happened I was sent to foster care just like you.”

“Were the foster people bad?” the boy asks, his brow wrinkling with concern.

“No. Were the people you were staying with bad? Or mean to you?” Erik hopes not. If they were, social workers would be the least of their concerns.

“Nah. Jean and Paul were pretty nice,” Peter says. “I only left because I wanted to find you.”

Erik hums, not sure how to respond to that.

“Well, the family I was with was pretty nice, too,” he continues. “Not a lot of people take in teenagers.”

An image of Ruth and Gerald come to mind. He hasn’t thought about them in a really long time. He’d genuinely liked them. An older couple, they’d been very patient when he showed up, a devastated thirteen-year-old with nowhere to go. They’d fed and clothed him, took an interest in what he was into. It quickly became very easy to imagine staying with them if he couldn’t have his own parents back.

“I’d been with them for two years when one day…”

The memory is still freshly seared into his brain.

_He’d been sitting at the kitchen table, across from Gerald. Ruth was in the kitchen making pancakes. When she brought the serving plate into the kitchen, the scent of perfume wafted into the small space._

_‘Your perfume…’ he’d stuttered._

_‘You like it?’ she’d said gaily, oblivious to his reaction. ‘I thought I’d try something new.’_

_He barely heard her. All he could smell was the scent of his mother._

_Then in the next breath, 'Be My Baby' came onto the radio. Edie Lehnsherr had loved that song ever since she saw it in her favorite movie and sung it to him every night until he was old enough to be embarrassed by it._

_His eyes started to sting and before he knew it, they’re overflowing and he’s so overcome with more grief than he could possibly contain, so much he’d surely explode._

_And then the screaming started._

“What happened?” Peter asks, startlingly him back to the present.

Erik clears his throat. “I got my powers. And it frightened them. Frightened me, too. And then they started talking about getting me help. Maybe they truly meant it, with the best of intentions. But there’s no help for our powers. I'd’ve just ended up in a military lab somewhere. So, I ran away.”

“Where'd you go?” Peter asks, wrapping his arms around his legs.

“Anywhere I could,” Erik answers off-handedly. “But at fifteen, I was in trouble from the start. I couldn’t go to work, or go to school, or even stay in real shelters without an adult.”

It had been a pain in the ass, constantly pretending that his dad was going to pick him up any minute now, his mom was two shops over, his grandmother had sent him to pick up whatever he needed that day.

“I stole. A lot. And eventually, I got caught.”

Peter’s eyes widen like they’re at the most intense part of a campfire story.

“What did they do?”

“Once they realized I was a runaway ward of the state, they put me in juvenile detention until they could find a placement willing to take an offender. But nobody wants a seventeen-year-old, especially one in trouble with the law.”

“So, what happened?” Peter asks. “How did you end up here?”

“I got lucky,” Erik says. “I had a parole officer named Phil. Really nice guy. Genuinely wanted to help kids get out of jail and stay out.”

Erik remembers the man fondly. Mid-30s, blue eyes, brunette hair, bland with a sense of humor drier than the desert. But he always had a smile and a friendly word. They met for the first time following Erik’s release two days after his birthday. Phil sat him down and laid out the facts.

_“This is a whole new ball game,” he’d said. “You’re 18 now and this is your one shot. No more slaps on the wrist, no more trying to help you straighten up and fly right. The next judge you land in front of isn’t going to see a bright boy with potential. You’ll be an adult offender with a long, pattern of delinquent behavior. And let me tell you, they don’t mind sending people straight to Big Boy jail for minor offenses. Do not pass go; do not collect $200. And not to be weird, but a pretty boy like you won’t do to well there. Or, more likely, you’ll do just fine, but in all the wrong ways, if you get my drift.”_

Erik had.

“He helped me get into a transition program on the other side of the city, away from where I’d gotten in trouble before. I got my GED and then the program helped me get a job at a call center. Now, I’ve worked all the way up to Assistant Manager of Operations. I’m hoping this degree will help me get to full Manager.”

He takes Peter’s paper and the pencil he’s not abandoned. He carefully erased all the stray marks and drawings and then returns both.

“So, I’m doing college because I want to,” he says. “I see you speeding down the same path as I was on and I’m trying to keep you from making the same mistakes. Not everybody gets as lucky as I did. When I tell you to stay in school, it’s because I did the opposite and I want better for you. Got it?”

Peter nods, takes his feet down, and picks up his pencil.

It takes them another hour, but they eventually finish the sentences.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes:
> 
> -The park I described is from my childhood. My mom took me and my siblings to this park several times a week. The rule was we had to do two laps and then we could play while she finished her walk. It’s a very happy memory for me. 
> 
> -If you’ve never had the joy of watching an indoor recess video, here you [go.](https://youtu.be/9xng62RWa_k) The song changes every two minutes and is totally worth the watch. Might come in handy if you still have little ones at home due to the pandemic!
> 
> -[Be My Baby](https://youtu.be/i-bcn6Rwn44) is a great song and also featured in one of my favorite movies [Dirty Dancing](https://youtu.be/eIcmQNy9FsM) is a cult classic that came out two years before Erik was born in this alt-verse. It was probably one of Edie’s favorite.
> 
> -I barely resisted the urge to ram “But Jennifer Lawrence dropped out at 14…” into the second scene. Lord knows I've had enough kids say it to me.
> 
> Also disclaimer: I’m a square nerd who’s never been in trouble with the law a day in her life. I tried to write something that sounded reasonable for Erik, but I don’t actually know what the consequences of his actions would be at his age. If you’re more knowledgeable and my solution is hooey, feel free to set me straight (politely, please!) And yes, Phil is an easter egg ;o)
> 
> Hope you like it!


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